nabokovfan87

nice work 🙂

I don't know that it's a deficiency of the plant but it's just staghorn algae forming, meaning something is off. What is your lighting and what does the schedule look like? Is blue light off? You might want to try to keep dosing until you're seeing a consistent 20-30 nitrates, potentially up the light power and/or duration. seachem has chemicals for both of these, there are also powders you can use. Just if you wish to find a bit more information on aquatic plants, I would point to here, very helpful conversation. If possible, can you please share a screenshot of the schedule in the app?

I have a 29 with a light, I can show you the difference if you want a photo. Get the light that has the longest LED span available. you don't want to rely on the handles or something to "make it fit". Even if they had a 32" one, I'd probably say grab that. I run a 24" light on mine. ...and I wish it was actually 28" long.

That's just brown diatom algae.

Acrylic will. Lexan won't.

That's the one!

yep 🙂

I would second these three. Especially moss. Pogostemon Stellatus 'Octopus' Java Moss Bacopa Caroliniana Another big one I've had success with is Jungle Val (especially in a tank with some otos or shrimp to keep it clean. The main thing is just to keep lighting under control. Some plants want very different types of light and understanding what they thrive in is one task, providing each their specific need by where you plant them is another.

yes absolutely. red sea sells some dosing pumps, cory has a vew videos on them as well.

Exactly the same thing! I spent 4-5 trips to the store trying to identify fin color. I had the original source for this image where they had hand drawn sketches and a lot of detail of what to look for. It's a great resource but I can't find the link. From what I remember: 1. The black lateral bar goes through the tail fins 2. There is a difference in the direction and number of barbels on the mouth between the flying fox and the SAE Edit: someone found it below!

Doesn't really matter about how "light" the hardcape is. I would just keep in mind you're looking at a LOT of weight in terms of water. Follow the video above. Is there any specific questions or concerns you have? One of the best tips in the video is when Cory shows how to make sure the surface of the block is flattened by sliding them on one another.

This is definitely true, but I would think from what we can see in the tank going on, you might have reduction of growth based on one of two factors. 1. Lighting window, meaning, how long is the light at full power, what % is that at? 2. Dosing schedule, what fertilizers and how often? Just an attempt to make sure the plants have their nutrients. I think SAEs definitely can focus on other food pretty heavily but they will graze on algae if you don't give them the option. I don't know how much you can target the current stocking for feeding with ease. Definitely a difficult situation. I have some staghorn algae I am working on solving, plants lost a bit of their green, so I feel what you're going through. Based on the situation, temporarily using easy carbon might be the solution besides adjusting the parameters above. Internally my Bentley Pascoe voice is just telling me to pass the advice of "be patient" and give it time. Hopefully a small tweak gets things going in the right direction for you.

Are you dosing CO2 when the lights are off (about an hour before) and then turning the lighting on or how are you handling that schedule? What type of things are in the tank to help combat brush algae? Amanos? SAEs?

Hey everyone, I think a lot of us can identify with wanting to have a setup like Dean or just having a rack of tanks, but absolutely not having the place to hold them. I wanted to share just a tidbit of my journey back into the hobby and talk about a unique way to view your tank when you simply can't add another one beside them. I had a tank when I was really young, it was a 20-30G aquarium we had in the living room and it was mostly my mom and I doing the majority of the work. We had an under gravel filter, the colorful gravel, satin plants, the whole thing. (I do miss the dragon ornament we had!) Needless to say the reason I purchased a tank years ago to "get back into it" was to try to bring some of that enjoyment to my stepbrother and stepsister who wanted pets, but due to allergies in the house we are very limited on options. After months of waiting for pricing, we got a 38G bowfront from Marineland and tried to find a spot for it. It was by far the nicest tank I've owned and I really appreciated the quality over time of that tank. The siblings had bettas in their room in bowl. Everyone got to pick a fish and everyone got to help decide what to add to the tank. I chose panda corys, someone else chose a glofish, someone else chose some rasboras, and we had some other small fish in the tank as well. Unfortunately, the clerk at the store put all the fish in one bag and they didn't even make it out of the door before we ran into issues. It wasn't a great start and we had to go back to the big box store and start all over. Eventually with more research and watching the tank, we ended up with some ghost shrimp that became a snack, added a bumblebee catfish, and we got the tank to a point where it was something we got to look at during dinner. Eventually we realized the tank had to move, and we needed a proper stand, which ended up with the $/Gallon bargain and a new 55G I setup. We then ended up with actually getting a proper plant light, and we had a lot more room to "fill". Trying to keep some interest and life in the tank we ended up adding some more active species. we had the corys, an angelfish, and the siblings now had proper 10G tanks in their room for their bettas with an actual filter and decorations. Unfortunately, once the angelfish got slightly bigger we discovered exactly how aggressive they could be. We also learned the importance of treating for diseases and trying to get their bettas with a little higher quality of life. (and I also tried a long time trying to express the need to not overfeed) Eventually the 55G ended up in my room, we found someone who locally enjoyed angelfish breeding and he took the guy off our hands. It really, absolutely sucks when big box stores don't have a policy or ability to take back a fish that doesn't work in a tank. So now I had this planted tanks and this is really where I want to talk about the subject at hand. I have a blank canvas and I have a few fish in there, but it's not the type of tank where there is a theme or there is a goal. Stocking at this point consisted of some corys, a bristlenose pleco, and some glofish tetras that needed someone to care for them. This is the point when I really dived into aquarium co-op videos and started to really learn about how to setup a tank with a bit more tactfulness. Personally I had enjoyed the plants themselves and diving into what plants I thought I could grow was the focus. I wanted to have sand substrate and stem plants with some Anubias. The goal was to have tall plants but have the ability for the fish to swim around and to swim through them. My "idea" was to try to have a tank that felt like the kelp forests here in California where the big sharks like to cruise around. We found a very interesting fish at the shop one day, and went home with a red tailed black shark for my new "plant forest". I had added some hardscape and was trying to get my "feet wet" as far as how to make a tank look good. I got some aquascaping tools, a few different options for rock and wood. For the most part all I have locally is some mopani wood and I had ordered some seiryu/dragonstone from the co-op. Eventually I saw Cory's massive tiger barb school in the 800 gallon and I was in awe. So at that point it was pretty clear what the theme of the tank was going to be. Green plants, green fish, and just a lot of life and area for the fish to explore. I added some clown plecos as well and some amano shrimp to help with algae. Overall, I was very happy about what the tank had become. I added some CO2 and everything was going really well for a good amount of time. Due to some issues with the tidal filters and their ability to snag a wide body fish in the surface skimmer when they were sleeping, the tiger barbs had a good life, but it was extremely frustrating when I would wake up and lose one. This sent me down a road of changing filters, and eventually realizing I don't really like any of them. Eventually I added some otos and despite QT they had brought in some ich and I ended up losing a lot of the mass of tiger barbs 😞 . I opted to keep the tank as a planted focus from this point on. I found some SAEs by fluke chance and spent weeks trying to identify if they were "really an SAE" or if it was a flying fox. I had a few of those in the tank and Grace the shark was defending her area of the tank while the SAEs were on the other side taking naps on the hardscape all the time. I also managed a bit of luck later down the road to find some butterfly loaches, which was just one of the most amazing things to sit and watch their behavior. The tank was now focused on cooler species, high flow, river type of a scape. Trying to get to the point of the story here.... I think it's a unique opportunity you might have if you don't have a lot of room for an additional tank itself. Changing just the wood, plants, substrate, location of hardscape, or even the filter location can absolutely change the feel of a tank. If you are in a situation where you can add a fish, depending what you find, your own research, and what the shop happens to have in stock, can also be a key variable for what your own tank becomes. Sometimes it just takes time to get to where you want the tank to be. Enjoy that journey.

Yes all of those will work as well as the pygmy cories. I'd definitely start with 3. Eventually you'll need a 20G to replace the 10. It's a very good tool. I appreciate the summary it generates. As always, I'd lean towards less fish and then see how the tank develops over time. Especially if you're running just one species. If you want to have say 5 Corys see how 3 do and some species will end up having fry. Just be aware of that, that's all.

Definitely a good fit because of the height of the tank. You do have to be slightly careful with angelfish because they are a cichlid and can be pretty feisty when they start to get a bit more mature. Especially the males. Something like a neon tetra and an angelfish won't work and you're just buying expensive food for the angel. Corys will be at the bottom, so those definitely still work. You might also not be able to have any shrimp just depending on the personality.of the angel. Are you planning on anything specific for the scape? Wood, rock, etc?

No eggs yet. Slight spike in nitrate from the added feeding. Fish are all doing fine. The temps during the day are about 5-6 degrees warmer (72-76 in the room) during the week now. If/when I get eggs I'll report back but I'm always struggling to get these Corys to react. Last spawn was a day it stormed during winter.

How is your oxygenation on the fry setup?

It's the best one you can get. Not even close. I have multiple of the fluval lights and they are extremely durable.

Visually it's a lot more appealing for me. Beyond that aesthetic reason, you're mostly doing that for the sake of trying to stop leeching from the planted substrate.

If you can. Perhaps get a piece of slate or something and just set that against the wall. The ziss might be at a slight angle, but you give the fish a cave and finding something flat, narrow width, but tall enough would just be the issue. The irony is those suction cups have removed fingernails they are so insanely strong. I used a knife against the glass because I could never get them off.

Congratulations! That's awesome. Step 1.... Corydoras. 😉 Following that, I would ask a few things. What kind of fish interest you and your wife? Specific colors or personalities? Do you have a stand for it as well? When I got my 55 I did a large species tank (20+ of a one type) with corydoras and a lot of nice plants.

I actually had this specific issue and never got it resolved. I would say you are gonna end up using some silicone or something. You can also drill a hole and potentially mod it such a way to install something with rubber washers and nylon hardware (or something fish safe) so you can tie it down that way. Even when I used the base of the tub, it just never stuck. I tried for months a variety of ways.

The first 2 look like a different species than the bottom one. The bottom one is a common pleco.

I've had Cory's on sand, the "fine gravel sand" from big box stores, on normal box store gravel, stratum, and now they are on seachem substrate. They are perfectly fine and content in basically everything labeled as "aquarium substrate". The only thing I would avoid is if you're going to home Depot or something trying to find something you saw in a YouTube video and you might end up with poor quality substrate that have micro particles of glass or metal (i.e. play sand or blasting sand) or some of the gardening rocks they sell that aren't really as smooth to protect the fish. Pretty much anything you'd normally use, should be "fine".